Over a recent Sunday breakfast, Gov. John Hickenlooper, fellow Western governors and chiefs of key federal agencies put their heads together on the problem of leaking inactive mines.
It has stymied Western leaders for decades.
But during that Feb. 21 confab in Washington, D.C., with the EPA-triggered Gold King disaster still roiling, Hickenlooper determined that a consensus had emerged: make tackling these tens of thousands of ecological time bombs a priority.
“There was a consensus the time is now,” Hickenlooper said, conveying his vision in an interview last week. “Let’s get a thorough inventory, assess — or, let’s say, reassess because almost all these mines have been assessed in the past — and begin looking at real timelines. How much would this cost? And what would be the best way to get the maximum reduction in toxicity?”
The problem is huge, even after so many Superfund cleanups, Hickenlooper said, “but it doesn’t mean you quit.”
“What Gold King did is put it front and center,” he said. “So, I think, there is a willingness to go.”
As part of the push, Hickenlooper said he would like to call a water summit at Four Corners with governors from New Mexico, Arizona and Utah.
And he’s “all for” turning Silverton, beneath the Gold King Mine in southwestern Colorado, into a research hub to find the best way to neutralize old mines — short of installing water treatment plants on every contaminated waterway.
“Are we sure there’s not some much less expensive way to deal with this issue? It was what they were trying to get at when they put in those big plugs,” Hickenlooper said, referring to past efforts to contain toxic drainage underground.
Worries about the West’s once-lucrative but now mostly abandoned old mines are intensifying because thousands — at least 230 in Colorado — still are draining thousands of gallons a minute of acidic, metals-laden muck into streams and rivers. This is happening at a time when high-growth states seek more clean water.
Headwaters of major rivers that originate in Colorado are tainted, according to Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment data. Acid metal drainage from mines is identified as a main source of toxic contamination.
The cost of addressing the estimated 500,000 inactive mines around the West, congressional natural resources staffers said this week, would be $20 billion to $54 billion, based on a 2004 Environmental Protection Agency report.
A comprehensive fix likely would require reform of the nation’s 1872 mining law, to charge the mining industry fees to help finance cleanup, and tweaking the Clean Water Act to encourage voluntary cleanups.
Companies and conservation groups say they need legal shields against liability if things go wrong, as they did at the Gold King on Aug. 5, when an EPA crew botched efforts to drain the mine and triggered a 3 million-gallon torrent that turned the Animas River mustard yellow.
Federal agency chiefs at the breakfast with Hickenlooper included Interior Secretary Sally Jewell, EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack and Bureau of Land Management Director Neil Kornze, allong with Wyoming Gov. Matt Mead and Utah Gov. Gary Herbert.
Tens of thousands of abandoned mines are on public lands managed by the BLM and U.S. Forest Service.
The Interior Department “finds it unfortunate that an incident like the Gold King Mine spill had to happen to highlight an issue that land managers in both the federal and state governments have been grappling with for years,” Jewell testified at recent congressional budget hearings.
Federal land managers are developing an inventory of inactive mines. They say they are hampered by significant resource constraints and, in recent budget requests, included a legislative proposal to fund cleanups of inactive hard-rock mines by imposing fees on industry as is done to deal with abandoned coal mines.
“We certainly welcome the opportunity to work with Congress and Western governors who have ideas they want us to consider addressing this significant challenge,” Jewell said.
The coordinated approach Hickenlooper favors would require action in Congress and teamwork among Western states, which often compete for finite water resources.
New Mexico recently threatened to sue the EPA and Colorado over the continuing pollution linked to the Gold King disaster. Other states and American Indian tribes also are considering lawsuits.
“There’s a natural tension there already” among states over scarce water, Hickenlooper said. And contaminants leaking from old mines could tip the balance toward lawsuits.
“There’s a temptation to go that direction,” Hickenlooper said.
“But all of the Western states have leaking mines that flow into other states. None of us is pure. … It’s a shared responsibility we all have. Over time, we need to get this cleaned up.”
New Mexico’s sense of urgency “is perhaps more acute” because of Gold King contamination that continues to hurt communities, state Environment Secretary Ryan Flynn said.
“We are open to working with Colorado, other Western states and tribes to develop a coordinated path forward to obtain the funding needed to address the urgent problem of legacy mines across the West,” Flynn said.
The EPA has accepted responsibility for the Gold King disaster, which sent the contaminated water flowing into New Mexico, Utah and tribal lands.
“And they want to be a partner in solving the problem,” Hickenlooper said of the agency. “You cannot really ask for more than that.”
Colorado health officials have launched a $300,000 inventory initiative, gathering data and planning to reassess 140 other draining mines in the state.
For the Gold King and 40 or so mines along Animas headwaters, Hickenlooper has requested an EPA-run Superfund cleanup. That request, in concert with EPA desires, backs a request by residents of Silverton and San Juan County for federal intervention.
The EPA must reimburse communities for costs of dealing with the disaster, Hickenlooper said. And then, in the future, solutions that EPA contractors and locals forge on the Animas could be replicated around the West.
“We’ve got a lot of mines,” Hickenlooper said. “This is the one that got everyone’s attention.”
Bruce Finley: 303-954-1700, bfinley@denverpost.com or @finleybruce
